Wednesday, September 14, 2011

New members Lenard Lange (j) and Jack Gray both made good starts to the Robert Isted 2011 tournament. This is a round robin event played over 60'+10" with 13 players, playing one match each Wednesday. Lenard has 2 points with a win over Cohen James and a major upset over Nigel Lewis (unfortunate blunder). Jack after his first win in the last tournament, played a good game against Russell, getting himself out of a tangle and 2 pawn deficit to almost snatch a win but for an oversight. Carey Kuzmic and Dragan Radosavljevic played an entertaining game with Carey mounting a massive attack, refusing a piece sacrifice with only 90 seconds left for the thrill of the mating hunt and eventual point 15 moves later.
Next week:
1 Jack Gray : Dragan Radosavljevic
2 Cohen James : Reg Harvey
3 Russell Horton : Lenard Lange
4 Zen Zero : Fred Duiker
5 Carey Kuzmic : R Neville Ledger
6 Dylan Kuzmic : Nigel Lewis
7 David Hughes : BYE

What a turn out! At least Lawrence was bedecked in a smart dinner suit, black shirt and tie, with white shoes. A great outfit appropriate for dining on ham sandwiches and Tim Tams and all the better to play chess in. Well almost - Lawrence's winning game soured to tramp's rags when Dylan found a comeback to recover his bishop and then to force a perpetual check. Lawrence checked his team mate's progress before deciding to accept the draw over a dubious king run in faint hope of survival.

Nigel was ecstatic about his salvation against new Tasmanian, Charlie Fourie, to halve points.

Reg was disappointed and disappointing missing many moves and never really got into his game against Launceston captain, Mike Baldini.

My game finished early against George Hambley. 15 moves of quiet play by George allowed rampant attack in the centre.

Phil played Marcus in the best game of the night. Unfortunately the time controls dictasted play in the middle game where ascendancy passed from Phil to Marcus. Marcus incredibly managed to wriggle from a restricted position to force an innovative combination with only 3 minutes remaining and Launcetsone wins 3-2!